After spending the entirety of yesterday studying, I've decided to spend today rearranging my furniture. If anyone hears a loud THUD followed by muffled cries for help, for the love of God call an ambulance.
~SarahFish~
Under a Sky of Azure
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Sarah Fish
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There's a special place in my heart for New Mexico.
Maybe it has something to do with the number of vacations spent there as a kid, roaming over Pueblo and Hopi ruins, hiking, and staring at red-rock studded landscapes better suited to Mars than our pale blue dot of a planet.
Or maybe it's because of the month I spent at Ghost Ranch back in '04 during an introspective psychology class. Between all the navel-gazing sessions, my soon-to-be best friend Kat and I roamed all over Santa Fe and areas to the North. We participated in an anti-war rally outside the Palace of the Governors. Inadvertently took the back road to El Santuario de Chimayo, turning a 30 minute trip into an all-day, switchback-hugging, mountain circling affair. Ignored "Closed Due To Weather" signs, and scrambled 140 feet up ice-slick wooden ladders to the Alcove House at Bandelier. Drove all the way to Albuquerque in search of a dance club that would let us in at 18. Overall, it was a coming of age tale that could give "Stand By Me" a run for its money.
I haven't been back since.
Sure, there's been talk of going back. Half-assed attempts to plan vacations. Every few months I'll have a "You know, if I started driving right now, I could be in Santa Fe by morning," moment. But responsibility creeps in, and I decide to forgo my fugue. Maybe next year.
During my weekend away from technology, I spent a lot of time thinking about work. Exactly what you want to do on your weekend, I know. But I thought a lot about my job. About what I really want to do. And not just what I want to do career-wise, but what I want to do with life. Trying to figure out just how in the hell I go about doing those things. Out of nowhere, I had one of those rare crystal ball moments where everything shifts into perfect focus, and I saw my answer.
I'm moving to Santa Fe.
Not now, of course. But I do have a date picked out. June 2012. Even now, typing it out, I get jittery. Nerves. Anticipation. Don't get me wrong - there's a method to the madness. A plan, vague though it is right now. Santa Fe isn't actually the ultimate goal. It's what I want to do there. But more on that in the future.
Posting this entry scares the shit out of me. I've mentioned before how I'm terrified of coming up with goals and letting other folks know about 'em. Because if you don't finish whatever it is you set out to do, everyone knows about it. In fact, it almost makes me feel doomed to fail by tossing this out into the universe. As though people knowing about my goal ensures that I won't meet it. Well fuck that noise. Here's something that I really want to do. Something so big, so ambitious that it frightens me. Hell, I'm even going to put a date on this puppy. Monday, 11 June, 2012 I'll be posting from Santa Fe. Watch me.
Maybe it has something to do with the number of vacations spent there as a kid, roaming over Pueblo and Hopi ruins, hiking, and staring at red-rock studded landscapes better suited to Mars than our pale blue dot of a planet.
Or maybe it's because of the month I spent at Ghost Ranch back in '04 during an introspective psychology class. Between all the navel-gazing sessions, my soon-to-be best friend Kat and I roamed all over Santa Fe and areas to the North. We participated in an anti-war rally outside the Palace of the Governors. Inadvertently took the back road to El Santuario de Chimayo, turning a 30 minute trip into an all-day, switchback-hugging, mountain circling affair. Ignored "Closed Due To Weather" signs, and scrambled 140 feet up ice-slick wooden ladders to the Alcove House at Bandelier. Drove all the way to Albuquerque in search of a dance club that would let us in at 18. Overall, it was a coming of age tale that could give "Stand By Me" a run for its money.
I haven't been back since.
Sure, there's been talk of going back. Half-assed attempts to plan vacations. Every few months I'll have a "You know, if I started driving right now, I could be in Santa Fe by morning," moment. But responsibility creeps in, and I decide to forgo my fugue. Maybe next year.
During my weekend away from technology, I spent a lot of time thinking about work. Exactly what you want to do on your weekend, I know. But I thought a lot about my job. About what I really want to do. And not just what I want to do career-wise, but what I want to do with life. Trying to figure out just how in the hell I go about doing those things. Out of nowhere, I had one of those rare crystal ball moments where everything shifts into perfect focus, and I saw my answer.
I'm moving to Santa Fe.
Not now, of course. But I do have a date picked out. June 2012. Even now, typing it out, I get jittery. Nerves. Anticipation. Don't get me wrong - there's a method to the madness. A plan, vague though it is right now. Santa Fe isn't actually the ultimate goal. It's what I want to do there. But more on that in the future.
Posting this entry scares the shit out of me. I've mentioned before how I'm terrified of coming up with goals and letting other folks know about 'em. Because if you don't finish whatever it is you set out to do, everyone knows about it. In fact, it almost makes me feel doomed to fail by tossing this out into the universe. As though people knowing about my goal ensures that I won't meet it. Well fuck that noise. Here's something that I really want to do. Something so big, so ambitious that it frightens me. Hell, I'm even going to put a date on this puppy. Monday, 11 June, 2012 I'll be posting from Santa Fe. Watch me.
"Am I willing to give up what I have in order to be what I am not yet? Am I able to follow the spirit of love into the desert? It is a frightening and sacred moment. There is no return. One's life is charged forever. It is the fire that gives us our shape."
- Mary Richards
Shades of Bierce
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Sarah Fish
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I've always been interested in unexplained disappearances. History is fairly littered with folks that just wandered off the edge of the map and popped out of existence.
There's the hoaxes/folktales about David Lang and Oliver Larch that have become ingrained in many peoples' minds as true events. This probably has as much as anything to do with their inclusion in almost every "Strange But True!" type anthology I've run across.
Lang is the more famous of the two - a farmer from Gallatin, Tennessee who vanished into thin air on a sunny September day in 1880 in front of everyone and his brother-in-law . Literally. Alleged witnesses included Lang's wife, his two kids, a judge, and the judge's brother in-law. One minute he was there, the next. . .gone. Variations on the story include the family hearing him yelling for help from the spot where he vanished years after the fact, the grass never growing right again, animals avoiding the spot, and other assorted weird shit.
Oliver Larch, while not as famous as his farming counterpart, vanished in a way more unsettling way. In the most common version, Larch was 11 when he walked out the door of his home one snowy night to get water from the well. [You can already tell - this isn't going to end nicely.] Minutes later, his family ran outside after hearing him start to shriek. But Oliver was nowhere to be found. Although they could still hear him screaming, his footprints in the fresh snow ended after 30 feet. Then comes the perfect horror movie moment when his family realizes that his shouts are coming from above them. Cries of, "Help! They've got me, they've got me!" which grew fainter with each passing second until at last the only sound was the rustle of snow falling on the pines and the nervous shuffling of his family.
The funny thing about these two is that both stories were adapted from short works by Ambrose Bierce. The Difficulties of Crossing a Field and Charles on Ashmore's Trail respectively. In 1913, Bierce himself vanished without a trace during a trip through Mexico, where he had accompanied Pancho Villa's army as an observer. Off the map, out of existence.
Which really is a damn shame, since the man was a goldmine of wit. One of my favorite quotes from him related directly to my mood today. "Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret."
This nasty, nagging aggitation has been lurking in the back of my head all day long. I started and deleted several posts discussing it. Even now, I'm tempted to just say, "fuck it all," and delete this one too. But no, I'm trying to be honest with myself. Making a point to talk about the good and the bad. Let's face it - sometimes life sucks. Sometimes, like today, life sucks for no reason whatsoever. The sun is shining, the weather is warm, and life is beautiful. But all I want to do is kick over a sandcastle or two.
So I figure I'll take a page from Bierce's book and go off-map this weekend. Shut down the computer, unplug the cable - TV and Internet, put the cellphone on silent, and take a little vacation from technology. I may not be able to vanish into thin air like Mr. Lang, but I sure can vanish from the virtual world for a couple days. Take a break and let my brain reboot.
Hell, maybe I'll read some "Strange But True!" paperbacks while I'm at it.
Off-grid until Friday,
~SarahFish~
There's the hoaxes/folktales about David Lang and Oliver Larch that have become ingrained in many peoples' minds as true events. This probably has as much as anything to do with their inclusion in almost every "Strange But True!" type anthology I've run across.
Lang is the more famous of the two - a farmer from Gallatin, Tennessee who vanished into thin air on a sunny September day in 1880 in front of everyone and his brother-in-law . Literally. Alleged witnesses included Lang's wife, his two kids, a judge, and the judge's brother in-law. One minute he was there, the next. . .gone. Variations on the story include the family hearing him yelling for help from the spot where he vanished years after the fact, the grass never growing right again, animals avoiding the spot, and other assorted weird shit.
Oliver Larch, while not as famous as his farming counterpart, vanished in a way more unsettling way. In the most common version, Larch was 11 when he walked out the door of his home one snowy night to get water from the well. [You can already tell - this isn't going to end nicely.] Minutes later, his family ran outside after hearing him start to shriek. But Oliver was nowhere to be found. Although they could still hear him screaming, his footprints in the fresh snow ended after 30 feet. Then comes the perfect horror movie moment when his family realizes that his shouts are coming from above them. Cries of, "Help! They've got me, they've got me!" which grew fainter with each passing second until at last the only sound was the rustle of snow falling on the pines and the nervous shuffling of his family.
The funny thing about these two is that both stories were adapted from short works by Ambrose Bierce. The Difficulties of Crossing a Field and Charles on Ashmore's Trail respectively. In 1913, Bierce himself vanished without a trace during a trip through Mexico, where he had accompanied Pancho Villa's army as an observer. Off the map, out of existence.
Which really is a damn shame, since the man was a goldmine of wit. One of my favorite quotes from him related directly to my mood today. "Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret."
This nasty, nagging aggitation has been lurking in the back of my head all day long. I started and deleted several posts discussing it. Even now, I'm tempted to just say, "fuck it all," and delete this one too. But no, I'm trying to be honest with myself. Making a point to talk about the good and the bad. Let's face it - sometimes life sucks. Sometimes, like today, life sucks for no reason whatsoever. The sun is shining, the weather is warm, and life is beautiful. But all I want to do is kick over a sandcastle or two.
So I figure I'll take a page from Bierce's book and go off-map this weekend. Shut down the computer, unplug the cable - TV and Internet, put the cellphone on silent, and take a little vacation from technology. I may not be able to vanish into thin air like Mr. Lang, but I sure can vanish from the virtual world for a couple days. Take a break and let my brain reboot.
Hell, maybe I'll read some "Strange But True!" paperbacks while I'm at it.
Off-grid until Friday,
~SarahFish~
In the Words of Bill O'Reilly:
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Sarah Fish
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"Fuck it, we'll do it live."
That's the conclusion I reached last night, following a long conversation with my lab coat-wearing, tea-drinking, note-taking inner psychiatrist. She has a tendency to show up at the worst moment imaginable. In this particular case, while I was vacuuming my mattress.
Which is another story altogether. I'll leave it at, "When you have as many animals as I do, cat fur manages to get into some really remarkable places."
Anyway. It's half past eleven, and I'm strong-arming the Hoover across the memory foam pad, muttering under my breath whenever the wheels sink into the heavenly softness, sending the handle soaring upward, locking into the full upright position. Heh. It's like running over an angel. One that still has some fight left in him.
"So talk to me about what's holding you back."
I jump a foot in the air, catch the vacuum cord with my foot, yanking the plug from the wall. Mo, my sweet, loving, ugly-as-sin puppy dog turns tail and hauls ass from the room. Smart guy. He knows the shit's about to go down.
She's leaning against the wall by the bathroom door, rimless glasses perched on her nose, clipboard in hand, antique china teacup hovering near her shoulder. Great. Not only does my alter ego decide that now is a great time for an appearance like some unwelcome Freudian wet dream, but since her last visit it seems she's developed telekinesis. A girl just can't catch a break.
"Huh?"
As always, I am the epitome of wit. Well-spoken until the last. One perfectly-manicured eyebrow shoots up as the Doctor waves her teacup over. What gives? I invented that look. That's my Eyebrow of Doubt. Alter-ego or not, some things shouldn't be communal property.
"What," she says, tapping her pen against the clipboard, "Is keeping you from achieving what you really want to achieve?"
I frown, and roll the question around in my head for a few minutes. The usual answers appear. Money. Time. Lack of Talent. Lack of Motivation. They swirl around in invisible eddies, swarming around my brain, obscuring my vision. Hm. Might as well give this a shot. Sarah the Psychiatrist seems to be settling in, leaning back against the edge of the mattress. Looks like I'm going to have to play along. I take a deep breath, and dive in, batting away the familiar, easy answers, kick my legs to propel myself down to dark, cold waters.
"Mediocrity."
Five syllables. The start of a bad haiku. Something along the lines of:
Mediocrity.
That seems to be the problem.
The hell can you do?
The Shrink tilts her head in a way that asks me to continue.
Hell. No getting out of this now. "Right now," I say, pointing at no-one in particular. "Right now, I'm content...well, not content...but okay with mediocrity. I work an okay job. I make okay money. I do okay in my personal life. Sure, it's not the life I'd really like to be living, but it's not a bad life. I may not have any epic achievements, and the accomplishments I do manage to scrape together may not get the masses riled up, but shit...my fuck-ups don't shock or devastate folks when they happen. I'm just...average. I have average achievements, and average mistakes, and neither surprises anyone. I know what to expect from my life, others know what to expect, and everyone goes home happy. Or mostly happy. And I'd rather be mediocre and stable and mostly happy than risk losing everything."
"You're afraid," Sarah the Shrink says. It's not a question.
I pause, purse my lips, and drum the mattress with my fingers. Christ, I need to give myself a manicure. My thumbnail is split in three different places. "Am I? No...you're right. I am. I am afraid."
Dr. S scribbles some notes, looks up at me over the top of her glasses. "What frightens you?"
"What frightens most people? Being alone. Never accomplishing your dreams. So forth, so on, into infinity."
"You're stalling," the Doc says. "You're avoiding the question because it feels cliche. You think everyone has fears that hold them back. You think that really, you don't have anything to complain about. You don't have it as bad as most people. Well we're not talking about most people. Right now, we're talking about you. And I want to know what frightens you more than anything. No matter how petty it sounds."
"I'm afraid of failing. I know, I know. It's cliche. But hear me out. I'm afraid of taking a shot at a given dream, or goal, or idea because I might fail. See, what happens if I take a stab at something - especially something I always dreamed I'd be good at - only to wind up failing miserably. Just completely obliterate that childhood dream. Times are, I'd rather be an unfulfilled dreamer clinging to hope that yeah, maybe I could've been successful, than look back over a lifetime of failures."
My Psychiatrist-Self cracks a smile. For the first time I can almost believe that we really are the same person. That she, in all her cool, collected, clinical manner is just as much a part of me as...well, the really fucked up parts. "Now we're getting somewhere," she says. "Go on. What else?"
"I'm afraid of being a disappointment. Of letting everyone down. I'm afraid that if I do start to make changes, or step outside my comfort zone that it won't last. That it'll be just another reason for people to not take me seriously. That I'll become this person...who's always setting goals, always dreaming big, but never achieving any of it."
"It sound to me like you're already that person. That you are living as your own Shadow, to borrow from Jung."
I fall backward onto my bed, pull my terry-cloth covered orange body pillow over my face. "Fuck. Fuck. You're right. I am. I already am what I'm afraid of being. Shit."
The Doctor scribbles a few more notes, and looks back over her shoulder at me. I peep one eye out from underneath my self-imposed orange blinder. "Go on," she says.
"I just...hell, I don't know. I'm afraid to tell people about the things I'd really, really like to do. I think I'm even afraid to tell myself. I feel like people keep "unfulfilled wild-ass idea" tabs on me, and that they're constantly being updated with my latest shenanigans. I sure as hell know that I keep those tabs on myself. Like even now. This conversation. Sure, it's great now. But I'm pretty sure that in a couple of days, I'm going to give up on the whole project as being too much damn work and go back to my lovely mediocre existence.
"I'm afraid to try without having someone in my corner cheering me on. I'm afraid to tell anyone, because I don't want them to be disappointed - I don't want to face that disappointment myself - when I fail. I'm afraid that I'll never be good enough, or successful enough. I'm afraid that I'll look back over my life and see that I never really accomplished anything, because I never felt like it was the right time to try. I'm afraid I'll be fat for the rest of my life. I'm afraid that I'll lose the weight, then find out that - oh, holy hell, that wasn't the source of all my problems. And then I'll have to face all of this all over again, only this time I'll be raw and exposed, with nothing left to shield me from the outside world."
This time, my alter-ego is silent, giving me time to gather my thoughts. Out of nowhere, my sister's huge orange cat - the term 'cat' is loosely applied here, as I'm pretty sure he's actually a small to average sized tiger - bounds onto the bed, landing on my stomach. He's purring diesel-engine loud as usual, and within a few seconds I'm joined by the rest of my feline menagerie. No wonder I have to vacuum my mattress.
"I'm afraid that I'll always be deeply unhappy - or at least unsatisfied - with who I am. I'm afraid that none of my dreams or goals will ever come to fruition, so why even bother with them? I'm afraid that this is is. This is the life I'm - quite frankly - stuck living. That nothing I accomplish really matters in the great scheme of things. That all I'll ever excel at is hurting, disappointing, and generally being an unpleasant nuisance to other people. That I'll waste my life away dreaming, waiting for permission or courage or whatever, and wake up one day old, grey, alone, and three quarters of the way crazy. That I've pretty much achieved everything I'll ever achieve."
The silence hangs between us, broken only by the branch-on-the-window scratch of her pen across her clipboard, by the larger-than-life purr coming from the behemoth curled on my sternum.
"So what do you do about this?" my alter-ego asks.
"I dunno," I say, throwing my orange pillow onto the floor. "Something."
Sarah the Psychiatrist points at me with the end of her pen. "Exactly."
Now I've gone and completely lost myself. But, I'm still game for trusting my subconscious knows what the eff she's talking about. "What do you mean?"
"I mean," the Doctor says, taking off her glasses and slipping the earpiece into the pocket of her lab coat, "that something is exactly what you need to be doing. Something. Anything. It doesn't matter what. Stop thinking and waiting, and do something."
"Oh."
"Yeah. Oh." There's Me again, peeking through that clinical facade. Even in that incarnation I'm not free from sarcasm's squirrely grip. "Anyway," the Shrink says, putting her glasses back on. "We're about out of time for today. I'm glad we had this talk. Same time next week?"
I nod mutely.
"Another thing. You have Major Depressive Disorder. No way around it. So do everyone a favor and take your fucking medicine."
"Aye aye, captain." I shoot myself a thumbs up, and my alter-ego lets herself out through the bedroom door.
"And take your dog for a walk. He's bored." I yell at myself from the living room.
That's the conclusion I reached last night, following a long conversation with my lab coat-wearing, tea-drinking, note-taking inner psychiatrist. She has a tendency to show up at the worst moment imaginable. In this particular case, while I was vacuuming my mattress.
Which is another story altogether. I'll leave it at, "When you have as many animals as I do, cat fur manages to get into some really remarkable places."
Anyway. It's half past eleven, and I'm strong-arming the Hoover across the memory foam pad, muttering under my breath whenever the wheels sink into the heavenly softness, sending the handle soaring upward, locking into the full upright position. Heh. It's like running over an angel. One that still has some fight left in him.
"So talk to me about what's holding you back."
I jump a foot in the air, catch the vacuum cord with my foot, yanking the plug from the wall. Mo, my sweet, loving, ugly-as-sin puppy dog turns tail and hauls ass from the room. Smart guy. He knows the shit's about to go down.
She's leaning against the wall by the bathroom door, rimless glasses perched on her nose, clipboard in hand, antique china teacup hovering near her shoulder. Great. Not only does my alter ego decide that now is a great time for an appearance like some unwelcome Freudian wet dream, but since her last visit it seems she's developed telekinesis. A girl just can't catch a break.
"Huh?"
As always, I am the epitome of wit. Well-spoken until the last. One perfectly-manicured eyebrow shoots up as the Doctor waves her teacup over. What gives? I invented that look. That's my Eyebrow of Doubt. Alter-ego or not, some things shouldn't be communal property.
"What," she says, tapping her pen against the clipboard, "Is keeping you from achieving what you really want to achieve?"
I frown, and roll the question around in my head for a few minutes. The usual answers appear. Money. Time. Lack of Talent. Lack of Motivation. They swirl around in invisible eddies, swarming around my brain, obscuring my vision. Hm. Might as well give this a shot. Sarah the Psychiatrist seems to be settling in, leaning back against the edge of the mattress. Looks like I'm going to have to play along. I take a deep breath, and dive in, batting away the familiar, easy answers, kick my legs to propel myself down to dark, cold waters.
"Mediocrity."
Five syllables. The start of a bad haiku. Something along the lines of:
Mediocrity.
That seems to be the problem.
The hell can you do?
The Shrink tilts her head in a way that asks me to continue.
Hell. No getting out of this now. "Right now," I say, pointing at no-one in particular. "Right now, I'm content...well, not content...but okay with mediocrity. I work an okay job. I make okay money. I do okay in my personal life. Sure, it's not the life I'd really like to be living, but it's not a bad life. I may not have any epic achievements, and the accomplishments I do manage to scrape together may not get the masses riled up, but shit...my fuck-ups don't shock or devastate folks when they happen. I'm just...average. I have average achievements, and average mistakes, and neither surprises anyone. I know what to expect from my life, others know what to expect, and everyone goes home happy. Or mostly happy. And I'd rather be mediocre and stable and mostly happy than risk losing everything."
"You're afraid," Sarah the Shrink says. It's not a question.
I pause, purse my lips, and drum the mattress with my fingers. Christ, I need to give myself a manicure. My thumbnail is split in three different places. "Am I? No...you're right. I am. I am afraid."
Dr. S scribbles some notes, looks up at me over the top of her glasses. "What frightens you?"
"What frightens most people? Being alone. Never accomplishing your dreams. So forth, so on, into infinity."
"You're stalling," the Doc says. "You're avoiding the question because it feels cliche. You think everyone has fears that hold them back. You think that really, you don't have anything to complain about. You don't have it as bad as most people. Well we're not talking about most people. Right now, we're talking about you. And I want to know what frightens you more than anything. No matter how petty it sounds."
"I'm afraid of failing. I know, I know. It's cliche. But hear me out. I'm afraid of taking a shot at a given dream, or goal, or idea because I might fail. See, what happens if I take a stab at something - especially something I always dreamed I'd be good at - only to wind up failing miserably. Just completely obliterate that childhood dream. Times are, I'd rather be an unfulfilled dreamer clinging to hope that yeah, maybe I could've been successful, than look back over a lifetime of failures."
My Psychiatrist-Self cracks a smile. For the first time I can almost believe that we really are the same person. That she, in all her cool, collected, clinical manner is just as much a part of me as...well, the really fucked up parts. "Now we're getting somewhere," she says. "Go on. What else?"
"I'm afraid of being a disappointment. Of letting everyone down. I'm afraid that if I do start to make changes, or step outside my comfort zone that it won't last. That it'll be just another reason for people to not take me seriously. That I'll become this person...who's always setting goals, always dreaming big, but never achieving any of it."
"It sound to me like you're already that person. That you are living as your own Shadow, to borrow from Jung."
I fall backward onto my bed, pull my terry-cloth covered orange body pillow over my face. "Fuck. Fuck. You're right. I am. I already am what I'm afraid of being. Shit."
The Doctor scribbles a few more notes, and looks back over her shoulder at me. I peep one eye out from underneath my self-imposed orange blinder. "Go on," she says.
"I just...hell, I don't know. I'm afraid to tell people about the things I'd really, really like to do. I think I'm even afraid to tell myself. I feel like people keep "unfulfilled wild-ass idea" tabs on me, and that they're constantly being updated with my latest shenanigans. I sure as hell know that I keep those tabs on myself. Like even now. This conversation. Sure, it's great now. But I'm pretty sure that in a couple of days, I'm going to give up on the whole project as being too much damn work and go back to my lovely mediocre existence.
"I'm afraid to try without having someone in my corner cheering me on. I'm afraid to tell anyone, because I don't want them to be disappointed - I don't want to face that disappointment myself - when I fail. I'm afraid that I'll never be good enough, or successful enough. I'm afraid that I'll look back over my life and see that I never really accomplished anything, because I never felt like it was the right time to try. I'm afraid I'll be fat for the rest of my life. I'm afraid that I'll lose the weight, then find out that - oh, holy hell, that wasn't the source of all my problems. And then I'll have to face all of this all over again, only this time I'll be raw and exposed, with nothing left to shield me from the outside world."
This time, my alter-ego is silent, giving me time to gather my thoughts. Out of nowhere, my sister's huge orange cat - the term 'cat' is loosely applied here, as I'm pretty sure he's actually a small to average sized tiger - bounds onto the bed, landing on my stomach. He's purring diesel-engine loud as usual, and within a few seconds I'm joined by the rest of my feline menagerie. No wonder I have to vacuum my mattress.
"I'm afraid that I'll always be deeply unhappy - or at least unsatisfied - with who I am. I'm afraid that none of my dreams or goals will ever come to fruition, so why even bother with them? I'm afraid that this is is. This is the life I'm - quite frankly - stuck living. That nothing I accomplish really matters in the great scheme of things. That all I'll ever excel at is hurting, disappointing, and generally being an unpleasant nuisance to other people. That I'll waste my life away dreaming, waiting for permission or courage or whatever, and wake up one day old, grey, alone, and three quarters of the way crazy. That I've pretty much achieved everything I'll ever achieve."
The silence hangs between us, broken only by the branch-on-the-window scratch of her pen across her clipboard, by the larger-than-life purr coming from the behemoth curled on my sternum.
"So what do you do about this?" my alter-ego asks.
"I dunno," I say, throwing my orange pillow onto the floor. "Something."
Sarah the Psychiatrist points at me with the end of her pen. "Exactly."
Now I've gone and completely lost myself. But, I'm still game for trusting my subconscious knows what the eff she's talking about. "What do you mean?"
"I mean," the Doctor says, taking off her glasses and slipping the earpiece into the pocket of her lab coat, "that something is exactly what you need to be doing. Something. Anything. It doesn't matter what. Stop thinking and waiting, and do something."
"Oh."
"Yeah. Oh." There's Me again, peeking through that clinical facade. Even in that incarnation I'm not free from sarcasm's squirrely grip. "Anyway," the Shrink says, putting her glasses back on. "We're about out of time for today. I'm glad we had this talk. Same time next week?"
I nod mutely.
"Another thing. You have Major Depressive Disorder. No way around it. So do everyone a favor and take your fucking medicine."
"Aye aye, captain." I shoot myself a thumbs up, and my alter-ego lets herself out through the bedroom door.
"And take your dog for a walk. He's bored." I yell at myself from the living room.
Then. . .well. . .nothing. My inner psychiatrist dissolves back into the white-noise buzz of my subconscious, and I'm still sprawled on the bed, vacuum cleaner forgotten over by the outlet, covered in cats and cat fur. My ugly puppy pokes his nose around the corner, trying to figure out just who in the hell I've been talking to in here.
I slept like a rock.
And today, I did something.
I've had this blog floating around the Web-o-Sphere for a good chunk of time. But I've never done anything with it. Just kept waiting for brilliant inspiration to strike, to come up with the perfect idea that would bring readers flocking to my site.
Well eff that noise. I'm posting. Right here. Right now. And you know what? I'm posting for me. That's right. Me. And I'm gonna post all the weird shit that goes through my head. The bizarre conversations I have with myself. And hey, if someone wants to tag along for the ride, hop on. Because in my head, you never know who or what's gonna pop up.
Here's to posting.
~SarahFish~
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